The Background Of Volume One
The nine volumes of Testimonies for the Church, aggregating 4,738
pages of text, consist of articles and letters written by Ellen G. White,
containing instruction to, and pertaining to the welfare of, the Seventh-
day Adventist church. A sixteen-page pamphlet, issued in December
of 1855, marked the beginning of the series of such counsels which
from time to time appeared in consecutively numbered pamphlets and
books. These messages naturally dealt with issues that were current,
but in most cases we are today confronted by the same problems,
perils, and opportunities which faced the church in earlier years
.
The earliest numbered Testimonies were published only about
seven years after the memorable “Sabbath Conferences” of 1848, when
Adventist believers in the newly revived Sabbath and sanctuary truths
laid the foundations of the distinctive doctrines held by the Seventh-
day Adventist denomination. During these few years the cause had
advanced in a marked manner. At the beginning there were only three
or four preachers, or “messengers” As they then styled themselves,
all of them dependent upon what they earned by physical labor and
the freewill offerings of the few believers, who also were poor in this
world’s goods. These beginnings were limited in area almost entirely
to the New England States
.
By 1855, the year of issuance of the first Testimony Pamphlet, there
were about a score of preachers of the Sabbath and Advent message.
The number of believers had grown from less than one hundred to well
into the second thousand
.
The publishing work, begun by Elder White in the summer of 1849
at Middletown, Connecticut, had been conducted in various places
under adverse circumstances. Now in 1855 it was established in its
own building in Battle Creek, Michigan
.
[6]
The time covered by the first fourteen Testimonies now found in
Volume 1 was thirteen years. We note a few of the experiences and
developments covered by the messages given during this period of
1855 to 1868
.
ix